Where's the Austerity in This Budget?

I see that the NYC papers are all buzzing about Gov. Paterson's "austerity" budget and how he plans on raising all kinds of taxes, including the one on carbonated beverages. Everyone is focusing on that soft drinks tax, and how it is supposed to raise $400 million a year. There's even an iPod tax, which would tax electronic downloads of music.

That's all smoke and mirrors.

Every last bit.

This isn't an austerity budget.

It's not even a budget that addresses structural problems with the state's revenue streams.

It's a budget that simply doesn't increase as much as previous years' budgets did. It attempts to raise revenues to match the need for increased state spending.

The Gov's proposal is spending $1.2 billion (some reports cite $1.3 or even $1.4 billion) more than FY 2008-2009. FY 2008-2009 was spending $121 billion. Apparently NY can't live on $121 billion and that anything that keeps spending in check is the demise of life as we know it - at least according to Albany.

This is asinine.

It's also insane.

New York can't afford its budget, and is in serious financial distress. If the state were an individual in financial distress and was facing serious debt, the state would be told to eliminate new spending, reduce expenditures and try to consolidate debt at a lower rate.

Little of that is being done with this budget. There certainly isn't any trimming of state expenditures. One area where it might catch on is a requirement that firefighters and police must work 25 years and be at least 50 to qualify for a full pension. Of course, the unions representing both firefighters and police will fight that tooth and nail.

Instead, the state is spending more money, and looking to balance the budget by raising taxes and fees on all kinds of items. It ignores what happens when you raise taxes into the teeth of a recession; it prolongs and deepens it. People have less disposable income and don't spend it - or choose to spend it outside New York, which means that the beneficiary of the tax hike isn't New York, but New Jersey, Massachusetts, or even Vermont, where there are lower taxes on certain items.

Paterson's budget will be slammed by Democrats as being too harsh and that it would cut valuable services - purposefully ignoring the fact that spending isn't increasing as much as it had in prior years. Republicans in New York must find their voice and slam the Governor's proposals as unworkable and provide an alternative that shows just how an austerity budget works that reduces spending - trimming serious levels of fat throughout the state.

Had Paterson taken the state budget from two years ago, he could have shown he was truly serious about cutting spending and balancing the budget, since that would have netted a savings of more than $7 billion over the current year budget. He did no such thing. There is no belt-tightening going on, no matter what the Governor says.

He's just showing himself to be another in a long line of tax and spend Democrats.